Preheat oven to 180 C. Set whisked eggs aside in a small bowl. Set panko breadcrumbs aside in a separate bowl. Dip cauliflower pieces in the egg and then roll in the panko crumbs until fully coated and place on a baking sheet lined with baking paper. Repeat until all the cauliflower pieces are coated. Bake for 15 – 20 mins or until the coating is a golden brown and crunchy. While the cauliflower is cooking make the sauce on the stove. Add all sauce ingredients except the flour and water. Bring to a simmer and stir until completely mixed. In a jar with a lid, mix together the flour and water, put the lid on and shake until flour is completely dissolved. Add the flour mixture to the sauce. Keep stirring until the sauce reaches a low boil and cook until it thickens (about 2 minutes). Pour sauce over cauliflower and toss until completely coated. Garnish with chives or green onions if desired. Serve warm.

Ratatouille is a French dish that typically consists of tomatoes, eggplant, peppers, squash, zucchini, onions, garlic and herbs. First the vegetables are sauteed separately and then cooked together very slowly. It can be served warm or cold. It is usually served as a side dish but can be served as a main course.I am pretty excited share this recipe with y’all! For two reasons. One, being that I never hear people talk about making this dish and I am here to tell you it is SO tasty and you should make it! The smell alone is divine!

Two, is because this dish consist of only ONE ingredients that is not from my garden! The onions are the only thing I didn’t pull from my backyard! Everything else is SEED TO TABLE! I love when that happens!

Every year I have an abundance of eggplant I pull from the garden. It is usually all with in 4-6 week period. So all summer I am always looking for new recipes that consist of eggplant! This is one of my new favorites! Right next to my Coconut Thai Basil Shrimp Stir Fry!

Ingredients:

10 tomatoes skinned and puréed

or

1 can of tomato sauce

2 garlic cloves

1 tbsp of herbs de provence

salt and pepper to taste

1 zucchini sliced

1 yellow squash sliced

3 tomatoes sliced

1 eggplant sliced

2 large onions sliced

4 tbsp of olive oil

Skillet

Yields: 8 servings

If you are not making your own homemade tomato sauce and are using a can of tomato sauce skip to step 3!

1. Start by making the tomato sauce this is the base of your dish. Bring large pot of water to a boil. While you are waiting for your water to come to a boil, in a large bowl, create an ice bath filling it with ice and water and set aside. Now with a knife core and make small X’s in the bottom of your tomatoes this makes getting the skin off of them easier.

2.Once your water has come to a boil place tomatoes in water and boil for 1-2 minutes or until you see the skin of the tomato start to peel back around the X.Strain tomatoes then place tomatoes into your ice bath. This is called shocking. This stops the cooking process immediately. Then strain tomatoes again and pull skin off tomatoes and discard skin.In a food processor or blender add tomatoes and blend together until smooth and set aside

3. In a sauce pan add one tbsp of olive and chopped garlic. Saute garlic for 1-2 minutes. Pour pureed tomatoes in pan and add herbs de provence. Salt and pepper to taste. Simmer on low-medium heat stirring occasionally until ready to assemble ratatouille.

4. Slice eggplant, tomatoes, zucchini, yellow squash and onions. In the skillet heat up one tbsp of olive oil over medium high heat. Saute each veggie separately for about 2-5 minutes and then set aside. Adding the remaining tbsp of olive oil as needed.

TIP: If you are on a time crunch you can saute your veggies together. The correct way to cook ratatouille is so saute each veggie separate to allow the flavors of each vegetable to develop! Let’s be honest though some days there is just not time for that!

5. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Pour the tomato sauce from the pan into your skillet. Smooth with a spoon making sure the sauce is level and even. Then assemble your ratatouille. Start at the edge of the pan and layer eggplant, yellow squash,tomato, zucchini and onion. Then repeat circling the whole skillet until you have reached the center of the pan and you can no longer see the tomato sauce.

6. Place skillet in oven and cook for 45 min-1 hour or until all the veggies are tender.

Ratatouille is an amazingly tasty dish that calls for many veggies gardeners typically have growing in their backyards! The presentation alone has a wow factor but the taste makes it that much better! If you’re looking for a dish to wow your guest look no further! Ratatouille is it!

Grow it. Pick it. Cook it. Eat it.

Chantelle

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Thu, 09 Jun 2016 09:37:42 +0000Christina Nifonghttps://christinanifong.com/2016/06/09/beautiful-beet-salad/https://shesallgravy.com/2016/06/01/roasted-cauliflower/
Wed, 01 Jun 2016 06:52:46 +0000Traciehttps://shesallgravy.com/2016/06/01/roasted-cauliflower/This roasted cauliflower is a little different than your average roasted cauliflower, and the kids absolutely love it! The recipe comes from a course I’m in the middle of doing – it’s an online cook school called Rouxbe. If you’re at all interested in cooking I highly recommend it, it’s an amazingly informative course chock full of info on all aspects of cooking and nutrition. I’ve been completely blown away by the information I’ve absorbed so far.

The Dressing:

1 clove garlic

zest and juice of 1/2 lemon

1/2 tsp sea salt

freshly ground black pepper (to taste)

2 to 3 tbsp olive oil (or other oil of your choice)

To make the dressing, crush the garlic over a large bowl. Add the lemon zest, lemon juice, salt and pepper. Whisk in the olive oil. Set aside while you prepare the cauliflower.

Preparing and Roasting the Cauliflower:

1 whole head cauliflower

parmesan cheese* (optional)

To start the cauliflower, preheat your oven to 230 degrees (450° degrees Fahrenheit). Remove the large florets from the cauliflower and cut them into even-sized pieces. Any of the very large florets can be sliced in half. Place the cauliflower into the dressing and toss to coat.

To roast the cauliflower, line a baking sheet with parchment paper or aluminum foil. Lay any flat pieces of cauliflower cut-side down, so they caramelize nicely. Roast for about 10 minutes before tossing. Return to the oven for about 3 or 4 minutes or until it is almost cooked through.

Once it is almost cooked through, grate some fresh parmesan cheese over top, if desired. Place back into the oven for another minute or so, just to melt the cheese.

Mix well and pour over vegetables. Reseal the tupperware container and shake well to distribute the mixture evenly.Pour into a greased or sprayed baking dish and add whole, fresh thai basil leaves.Cook in a 400 degree oven for 25-35 minutes, depending on how well done you like it.

Have a great day everybody!

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Mon, 18 Apr 2016 15:00:06 +0000thewanderingrdhttps://thewanderingrd.com/2016/04/18/from-our-kitchen-a-simple-salad/We eat a fresh, tossed salad almost every night as part of our dinner. While in Italy, we stopped using bottled salad dressings and embraced dressing a salad the typical Italian way: plenty of olive oil, a tiny bit of vinegar—and this makes all the difference—enough salt to make it taste good.

When I cook with minimally processed foods, I don’t feel bad about adding salt to my real foods. Chances are I’m not adding nearly the sodium that is in the processed foods of a typical American diet. Further, with regard to blood pressure, decreasing dietary salt doesn’t help everyone control their blood pressure.1There appears to be more to it, and some recent research has linked sugar and insulin resistance (a metabolic problem in which carbohydrate isn’t used properly by the body) to blood pressure.2,3In most cases, if we are cutting back on processed foods and sugar, somewhat liberalizing the use of the salt shaker to make real food taste good is not likely to have a negative effect on blood pressure and may actually improve it, especially with weight loss.

My Dressing “Recipe” (for a family-size salad):

About 3 splashes (about 2 to 3 tablespoons) of olive oil (Of course I’m partial to oil from Italy, which is more difficult to find than you’d think due to blending; when I run out of my stash, I’ll buy it from Trader Joe’s)

1 capful (about 1 teaspoon) of apple cider vinegar

About 6 to 8 turns of the sea salt shaker

About 3 to 4 turns of the black pepper shaker

Other Salad Tips:

We just started to receive local, fresh, home-delivered salad greens from theneighborhoodharvest.com. We get a mesclun mix and two other rotating types of salad greens, along with a tray of rotating microgreens (“sprouts”). They are grown in a greenhouse hydroponically and are pesticide-free and ready for use, so I just grab it by the handful and it’s so convenient. Use any greens you like. Switch it up for variety. I used to think the kids wouldn’t eat fancy greens, but they do and they love getting the different greens from the cooler on our porch each week and helping me prepare the salad each night.

I usually add cheese, most often an ounce of feta cheese, but every now and then I switch it up and use blue cheese or parmesan (the good stuff from Italy, of course.)

I always add a handful of freshly-toasted pecan or walnut pieces. Surprisingly, since my kids weren’t big nut fans, they now whine if I don’t remember to add the nuts. It really adds some crunch and flavor to the salad. Try toasting unsalted sunflower seeds if you can’t have the nuts.

Not too often, but sometimes I will add blood orange segments, strawberries, or dried cranberries for a change. Maybe once a month, I will add about a teaspoon of honey; acacia from–you guessed it, Italy–is my favorite. The kids love the sweetness, but it’s a treat.

If I have salad for lunch, I will often add either leftover roasted chicken or tuna packed in olive oil (then I omit adding oil) to my salad. (Italian tuna changed me forever; I love the Rio Mare brand. But Trader Joe’s has a decent oil-packed tuna.)

I don’t think it will change the nutrition per se, but there’s something about mixing it all together in a large bowl (my special olive wood bowl, in this case) too, that adds to the enjoyment of our salads. The dressing is distributed evenly, the colors are so vibrant and sparkling in the olive oil, it’s so simple and satisfying that I made it myself. It might just be me, but it honestly makes me happy just looking at it. And then again when I eat it. But I don’t think you have to have lived in Italy to enjoy this salad as much as I do. Get out a nice bowl and try it this week…and let me know what you think! Can you live without bottled salad dressing? Why or why not?